My fellow lawyers in government,

            Let me begin by thanking you for your invitation, and for conferring upon me this “Outstanding Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines” award.

            I know that one should not look at a gift horse in the mouth. But I am a little uncomfortable about this award. Why? Mainly because you seem to have chosen your awardee from a vast field of only one candidate. There was no chance of being bested or edged out.

            Now, if you were comparing your awardee to his long line of predecessors, that would be another story. But the award may be premature. I have a six-year term, and I have barely started. 

            Now, given the multiple assignments that have been entrusted to me by our President----Housing czar, presidential adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers’ Concerns, Chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee Against Trafficking, Head of the Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment, and occasionally Special Envoy to important International Conferences abroad---I have been called all sorts of names, and I have not been able to do much about it.  “Most trusted,” “most hardworking,” “most down-to-earth,” etc., etc.  I have learned not to mind.

            So, I suppose, I will simply have to submit to your “Outstanding Vice President” label, without much protest.

            However, if your intention in giving this award was, by any chance, to make sure I would say something good about PAO, I assure you there was no need for it, for I came fully prepared to honor PAO for the exemplary work it has been doing.

            My friends,

            Over the last four days, you have been patiently listening to the lectures and speeches, reading hand-outs, and jotting down notes if only to complete your 36 units of MCLE for the current compliance period.  For this, I must congratulate you all, knowing the discipline it takes for you to sit it out and spend practically your whole week in a virtual law classroom.  Maganda yang aral nang aral ang mga manananggol pambayan para higit pa niyong ma-ilaban nang husto ang ating maliliit na kababayan.

            I thank your Chief, Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta, for this opportunity to be part of your convention.  I have been observing the activities of Compañera Persida and I am deeply impressed by her energy and vigor in pursuing the objectives and advocacies of the Public Attorney’s Office.  I am confident that with her at the helm, the Public Attorney’s Office will continue to discharge its duty of providing competent legal service and assistance to the indigent litigants among our people.

            We often hear that in our adversarial legal system, it is the litigant who can engage the services of high-priced lawyers who win their cases in court.  That may be so in certain cases where the judge may be open to certain extra legal influence. But I refuse to accept it as a general proposition simply because my own experience does not validate it.

            In my early days of law practice, I handled quite a number of cases similar to those which you now handle. Yung iba sa inyo, hindi na siguro inabutan ang CLASP noong araw o Citizens Legal Assistance Service for the Poor. On my own, I represented indigent litigants –-urban poor dwellers who faced demolition, labor unionists who were at the receiving end of unfair labor practice, human rights activists who were picked up by police authorities in violation of their human rights, precisely for protesting against human rights violations. 

            Our only difference is that I received no compensation from government—the same government I was compelled to fight during the martial law years.  But like perhaps many of you here today, I was beating the pricey lawyers from the big law firms, not necessarily because I was much brighter than they were, but only because I probably worked harder than the other party on every case, and knew that it meant everything for my poor client to win.

            As an orphan boy who grew up in the scarred neighborhood of Culiculi in Makati, I thanked my lucky stars every time I had to represent an indigent client in court. I always found myself thinking that if I had not become a lawyer, I would probably have been the one asking for public legal assistance service rather than the one giving it. I found it so easy to identify with my poor clients, and that increased my zeal to win their cases. And to see them so happy winning a case was always more than enough reward.

            It is most gratifying to hear that the Public Attorney’s Office has been of late attracting young and idealistic lawyers into its fold. This is only as it should be. In a poor and developing country, it should be part of the idealism of the young to look for opportunities to be of service of those who have so little in life, and many times even so much lesser in law.  But without the present leadership and reputation of PAO, which are the envy of many other institutions, I doubt that these young lawyers would be coming to you.

            I have no doubt that the high profile cases being handled by Chief Persida have much to do with it.  There was a time when PAO lawyers, probably because of the work of a few, seemed to have the not-so-good reputation of being the abogado-de-paamin. Whether this had any basis or not, I am happy to see that this now seems to belong entirely to the past; you no longer hear it said of PAO lawyers. On the contrary, I have heard of many instances when PAO lawyers reportedly slugged it out mano-a-mano with the prosecutors, public or private, and came out on top.

            This is something you should build on.  Our service to the law and to poor deserves our very best effort, and service to the one should be interchangeable with service to the other.  There should be no distinction.  When you serve the law, you should simultaneously serve the poor.  And there should be no limit to what you should be prepared to do to perform this service.

            I have long ceased being a public defender.  But in my work as Presidential Adviser on OFW Concerns, I have had to intercede on behalf of Filipinos who had been convicted of heinous crimes and sentenced to die.  In February this year, I had to travel to Beijing to intercede on behalf of three Filipino death convicts who were scheduled to be executed a day after.  As a result of my appeal, the execution was stayed.  They were finally executed one month later. My prayer that their death penalty would be commuted to life sentence did not happen, but until the execution finally took place, no one could say that a commutation was entirely out of the question.  In any case, the month-long reprieve must have given the convicts a little more time to make amends and prepare themselves spiritually for their final destination.  That cannot be a bad thing.

            Para sa hindi nakakaalam, mayroon pong dalawang klase ng death penalty sa China: death penalty with reprieve at death penalty without reprieve. Iyong with reprieve usually nacocommute to life sentence. At ayon po sa karanasan ng isang Pilipino doon, after 15 years, pinapauwi na sila.

            Earlier this month, another Filipino convict was executed in Beijing.  As soon as I heard the news of the scheduled execution, I prepared to do the same thing I did for the first three death convicts. The execution was to take place on Dec. 8, an important day for Filipino Catholics who celebrate it as the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and a few weeks before Christmas, which is a season of joy for all Catholic Christians.

            President Aquino wrote to President Hu Jin Tao of China a letter appealing for possible commutation of the death sentence. At the same time, Bishop Precioso Cantillas, Bishop of Maasin and chairman of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines or CBCP wrote a similar appeal to the Chinese government, through the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Liu Jianchao. 

            I then prepared to hand-carry the President’s letter to President Hu Jin Tao. But while I was trying to make arrangements to perform that duty, statements from some of our government spokesmen appeared in the media saying that the Philippine government fully respects the laws and the court decisions of China, and that the execution of the Filipino death convict would not affect our two countries’  bilateral relations.

            There was never any question of our not respecting the laws or court decisions of China, or of our relations being adversely affected by China carrying out its death sentence. Therefore, the statement of our spokesmen was completely unnecessary, and simply tried to “push an open door.”

            My effort to seek a stay of execution and a possible commutation of sentence from death to life imprisonment was, and always had been, consistent with our Christian culture and Constitution.  Whether or not we personally agree with the present policy on capital punishment of death, the Constitution has abolished it, and as far as our Christian culture is concerned, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, while not excluding the death penalty in cases of extreme gravity, urges public authority to use bloodless means of protecting public order and the safety of persons, in conformity with human dignity.

            No time or resource of the State is ever wasted in the exercise of mercy or the search for a second chance, even for those who have been convicted of capital crimes.  The finality of the sentence does not always settle the innocence or guilt of the person convicted; in some European countries, where the justice system is not as imperfect as ours, a number of death convicts had been proved innocent after they had been executed.

            In other countries, where the justice system is not as good, more such cases could occur.  This is why I have never believed we should close the door on any Filipino death convict in a foreign land appealing for a reprieve or a lighter sentence.  Our people would never understand if the government did nothing to help such a poor convict, even when help no longer seemed possible.   And we would be so much less of a government if we simply threw up our hands in the air, and said there is nothing more to be done. 

            In serving the poor, we shall be called upon, many times, to do the impossible.  That is the real challenge.  Our response---you at PAO, and me where I am----will determine whether we shall soar like eagles or simply fold our wings and say we cannot fly.

            Thank you and good morning.​